Modern Romanticism

Once I saw what gleamed, until
I only saw what dreamed. One dark
realization, never before rubbed,
smeared, left under curtains;

there, as a disguise to the daylight
with the misery.
He wanted his chains broken,
his mask torn off,
left with the bandages, his skin,
the nakedness of honesty.

He dreamed under a glaze,
a stir from a heavy heart.
He hoped during the craze
of those jealous of death:

to death’s imminent embrace
of a man with no more
life to taste.

His tongue, a hornet’s nest,
his puddling tears – honey.
Fields this dark and lurking
are finding him wanting.
An empty trail, going backwards
goes nowhere,

not to a mother’s arms,
not to that man’s kin
who weep when he sleeps.

Only when hope draws itself
into winter’s sudden warmth,
can honesty be that next degree
outside of that endless sea.